Authority to reveal log ship findings

By JO-MARIE BROWN

The Maritime Safety Authority will today release its long-awaited report on the grounding of the Jody F Millennium at Gisborne last year.

The investigation, which has taken 14 months to complete, is one of the most comprehensive the authority has carried out.

It will reveal what went wrong on Waitangi Day last year when the ship ran aground off Waikanae Beach in Gisborne while trying to leave port during a southerly storm.

The Jody, with 20,000 tonnes of pine logs on board, was stranded for 18 days and spilled 25 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into Poverty Bay after rupturing a fuel tank.

The ship's owners are suing the former port company and the Gisborne District Council over the Jody's grounding.

Twin Bright Shipping and its parent company, Soki Kissen, say Port Gisborne negligently and improperly ordered the ship to sea in unsafe conditions and otherwise failed to provide a safe port.

"They should probably never have allowed the ship into the port because they didn't have the systems and the management to cope with it," said maritime law specialist John Gresson, who is acting for the Jody's owners.

"When it was in port, they dropped the ball ... and then they sent it out of the port in circumstances where it was almost doomed to hit the brakes."

Mr Gresson, of Auckland law firm Norton White, said the owners were seeking approximately $23 million in compensation for the salvage operation, towing costs, ship repairs and oil-spill clean up.

"We reckon the port should pick up the tab."

The Gisborne District Council was also named as a defendant because it had a statutory oversight of the port, Mr Gresson said.

The council has filed its statement of defence but the port company has been granted an extension because of the complexity of the issues.

Tomorrow's authority report is expected to express concern about the role played by the port company, the council and the ship's Korean master during the grounding.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine